The Female Audience

The most important question that we must ask ourselves is how are the commercials on national television affecting our female generations? It has been found in a study that the average North American girl will watch 5,000 hours of television including 80,000 ads, before she even starts kindergarten. So what message do we intend to send to the young adult female audience especially when television takes up so much of their lives before even reaching middle school?

It is known that the strongest message sent to females in television commercials is "You must look like this. You must act like this. You must dress like this. If you want to attract a man or achieve some level of relational `success' with a man, you need to follow these rules.” Essentially, sexy ads that promote this message can be viewed by children that watch programming during prime time television. For example, “An 18-year-old female described a more recent Herbal Essences ad by saying, that “The three men in back make the ad sexy. They are attractive and muscular, and the camera sometimes focuses on their hands touching the woman's body. It makes me, as the consumer, want to open the bottle of shampoo and have three strong, handsome men wash me." There are multiple commercials created by Victoria’s Secret and fragrance/shampoo companies that promote models in push-up bras or dressed in scantily clad outfits that have become the basis of female advertising. It has become so common in the media that most females do not even notice the ads that promote this message and they do not understand its true power.

In essence, this ultimately means novelty for the female generation. Companies are creating these commercials because it is new and exciting to discover romance and crushes while moving into the realm of sexuality is stimulating. There is a level of danger if their parents should ever find out what they are doing when viewing these television commercials. Commercials that touch on these specific topics can be seen during any time of the day.

An American 1996 study “Images of Female Children in TV Commercials” found that there are 33 commercials per hour during Saturday morning cartoons alone. The commercials aimed at the female audience show girls 77 percent of their time laughing, talking or observing others while in the home. Is this an accurate depiction of the female gender? This audience is surrounded by images of beauty that are unrealistic. In the same study, two out of three girls stated “I want to look like that character on TV” and one out of three “want to change something about their appearance to resemble that character”.

But as these young adults get older, most will tune out the messages being portrayed about sexuality and “who you should be” but there still are some that will continue to base their image and personality on a character seen on television.